Say what you will about other mail services, it is just not possible for any one to be worse than Brazil's. It's just not. Yesterday I received an envelope that was sent to me on November 20, 2013 from Toronto, Canada. It took 2 1/2 months for a guest pass for the Air Canada lounge to reach me here in Brazil. I have three weeks left to use it--I took the trip for which this friend had sent me a free pass in December. By the way, any São Paulo friends heading to Canada and want a free three week pass? Seriously.
Two and a half months. One envelope. And this is not an isolated case of idiocy. A friend in Alabama sent me a plaid hat last year, used and without value (other than emotional). It has not arrived to this day. It's a wool hat so I am doubting that the customs guy is wearing it but what the heck happens to this stuff? Why do no Brazilians care? You do realize this is unacceptable right? I get in trouble for criticizing this country (I pay taxes, I am allowed to complain--don't worry the US is in for it when I get back in August) but seriously, there is something wrong with a country that wants to sit on the UN permanent council yet cannot get me a piece of mail for two and a half months.
Also they messed with girl scout cookies. Two years ago a friend in Maine sent me two boxes of Samoas and they arrived three months later in tiny bits. I ate every last crumb. I am not proud. But no one messes with girl scout cookies. That is when I made my plans to leave.
Grrrr. Today's cranky post now over.
We got a Christmas card about a week ago, which was sent from the UK in late November. So ridiculous! I know of two other Christmas cards that were sent in December from the US which never arrived at all. One of them had a small crochet gift in it. I'm not counting on those ever showing up at all. The thing that sucks is that you can't do anything about it at all.
ReplyDeleteIt's completely absurd. At least when Chicago was losing every one's mail twenty years ago it was because there were some mail carriers who just didn't feel like delivering it and put it in their trunks forever, or burned it under a bridge. You knew what happened to it. Here you have no idea what in the world has happened to it. And there's no way to track it. Makes me nuts.
DeleteOh, really did you get a status update on the tracking system saying "Item successfully burnt: Michigan Avenue Bridge" ?
DeleteOh goodie, you're as cranky as I am today. Actually we just read the smoke signals...and look, if anyone brings up the Royal Mail, there are other winners out there: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/postman-buried-burned-29000-letters-1716539
DeleteCranky? Yeah, I guess I was. Anyway, that's exactly my point. I remember that guy from the news. There are some great disaster stories over here as well but in the absence of statistics, we're just sharing anecdotes and they tend to be negative. When was the last time you got excited about mail arriving on time?
DeleteDepends. If it holds Samoas, I am very excited. Tax documents, not so much. Christmas cards, yes. In May, no...
DeleteLast year I sent a few gifts, nothing expensive, from London to Sao Paulo. Since the total was over a certain weight limit, I had to split them in two boxes. One took at least 3 months to arrive but the other box only took a week or so. Going the other way, I received a panetone in a week even though the girl at the counter in Sao Paulo said it would take much longer and certainly not arrive in time for Xmas (but it did).
ReplyDeleteWhy do some packages take so long when others are so quick? I have no idea. But isn't it interesting that we (myself included) immediately think the problem must be in Brazil? Surely the issue can't be the USPS or Royal Mail, right? :)
Hmmm, no this problem is definitely Brazil. I know nothing about the Royal Mail but even the USPS is not so consistently incompetent. Incompetent, yes, but not three months worth of incompetent. Plus you can track everything. Here it is the twilight zone. The other part of the twilight zone is that the post office branch I have used for the last five years just spontaneously closed. No sign, no warning. Just here today, gone tomorrow. It is a grrrrrr for me, my friends at Correios.
DeleteI'm pretty sure that most, if not all, of the blame lies with Brazil too but it sounds like you're comparing the domestic efficiency of the USPS (or Royal Mail - try bad mouthing the Royal Mail to a brit and see the kind of trouble you get into) to the woes of sending and receiving packages internationally. Not exactly apples to apples. Have you considered that part of the problem might be paranoid security and law enforcement checks? That's the sort of thing you just can't blame on Brazil. :-P
DeleteListen, if I can't be illogical on my own blog, where can I be illogical? Yes, you're right of course. Domestic mail delivery is good in the US and I don't really know where things are getting fouled up. I have never tried sending anything from Brazil to the US so who knows if the NSA checks all the border crossings for suspicious items in panettones. Well, obviously they do. All I can say is: don't mess with girl scout cookies.
DeleteI'm going to have a little tete-a-tete with my mail carrier here, named Ricardo. I think it is time to have a mail man interview on my page.
Andrew...just had a somewhat hilarious conversation with Ricardo, the mail carrier. I showed him the envelope with the postmark and said "what??". He shook his head and asked me how long I have lived here now and I said 9 years total..and he said "then you should know how it is". He said that it is a total mystery to me what happens to mail before it appears in his delivery bag for the day. Seriously. He said the delays of international mail may come from a ship stuck in port in customs delays or it could just be that no one cares. He has worked for Correios for 13 years and it has not changed one bit in efficiency. He blames politicians, and the "sementes" planted years and years ago. He worries about the prospects for his kids. And he wound it up by saying "why are you still here when you could go live back in the US?" So there's the wrap-up from Correios.
DeleteLet me get this straight. Your mailman has no idea how mail delivery works beyond the narrow limits of his own job. But whatever it is that's wrong, it's somebody else's fault not his own. Sounds like you got a winner there too. :-)
DeleteI just report it. He's pretty funny.
DeleteThis is a topic that is never consistant I have found. For instance, I can receive a letter from the US within a week, but then last year my university sent me something that was postmarked in October and it arrived in December. Its so crazy. I just thank god my tax documents made it within a week instead.
ReplyDeleteI would say it is heavily weighted to the side of lateness. Yes, I get my alum magazine ALWAYS three months after they send it. I guess because it is not first class. I told my college to just forget it and send to my parents.
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